AJC cheating series: National Blue Ribbon Schools that may be red-faced at these revelations
The AJC has published the second installment in its major series on test score disparities nationwide. Today’s stories look at the improbable score patterns in some of the nation’s most highly decorated schools, National Blue Ribbon Schools.
AJC reporters included a winning school that even merited a visit from Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Highland Elementary in Maryland.
“This school, just four or five years ago, wasn’t a Blue Ribbon school,” Duncan said that morning in September 2009, according to video of thew award event. “It had the same type of children, same type of families, same type of community — but dramatically different results.” Now, he said, “this school has more students at the advanced level than any other school like it in the state. It’s absolutely remarkable.”
And remarkably unlikely, according to the AJC analysis. It is essential to verify the achievement at these heralded school as they are held up as role models.
The AJC examined Blue Ribbon winners as part of a nationwide analysis of test scores. In an article last month, the newspaper identified nearly 200 school districts where test-score changes reflected a pattern that, in Atlanta, pointed to widespread cheating by teachers and principals.
The full analysis of 69,000 public schools showed that Atlanta’s cheating was no fluke. The examination of 605 recent Blue Ribbon winners suggests that test manipulation may be even more prevalent among schools considered models for others to emulate.
Statistically improbable test scores spiked at dozens of schools in the year they applied for the award, the analysis found. In that year, suspicious gains occurred about three times more often in Blue Ribbon winners than at all schools nationwide.
Among all Blue Ribbon schools with suspicious scores, the analysis identified 27, including Highland Elementary, that had the most unlikely gains. In some grades and subjects, the odds against increases occurring without an intervention such as tampering were so high as to be virtually impossible.
No statistical analysis alone can prove that anyone cheated. But in data and documents and in interviews with school officials and testing experts, few other credible explanations surfaced for how the scores of so many students could shift so quickly to such odds-defying degrees.
“Those kinds of changes are just incomprehensible,” said Jaxk Reeves, director of the University of Georgia Statistical Consulting Center. Reeves was one of the academic experts who reviewed the AJC’s analysis.
Another researcher who advised the newspaper, James Wollack, director of testing and evaluation services at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said many schools credit their instructional strategies for overnight success. But no changes in teaching methods, he said, are enough to account for “ridiculous, nonsensical gains.”
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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116 comments Add your comment
Attentive Parent
April 30th, 2012
7:17 am
I guess I am still in time out. All night long.
Wow.
This is interesting. In attempting to be a bulwark, please remember I have put together all the pieces carefully and based on function. And the history behind these ideas.
And that Attentive Parent Glossary.
TimeOut
April 30th, 2012
8:35 am
I suppose that there is value in evaluating participants’ past behaviors. But, too much time spent on “hindsight is 20/20″ takes away from what we can be doing now to improve our situation. School systems have been operating a “jobs program” via nepotism and cronyism for quite some time. We may not be able to counter completely the negative impacts of those who have used public money for personal gain, but even Standard Oil fell, eventually. Education is such a huge portion of every community’s budget. It seems that it will be difficult to trim the reach of the greedy into this communal kitty, but we have to try. NCLB was idiocy and teachers knew that it was so. Race to The Top is more idiocy, and again, the teachers know that it is so. It has become quite an act of bravery to do the right thing for children in the classroom, on a daily basis. I’ve never liked unions. I wonder what type of organization or movement we could create that could outmaneouver the self-seeking machinations of legislatures, corporations, etc.
Let's get real
April 30th, 2012
10:16 am
First of all what a LAME response by the principal of Mary Lin; “The students got off track and that caused all the wrong answers, then the students got back on track again and then made the right answers”. That is the most ridiculous response ever. Why didn’t Beverly Hall give that answer? It seems as though she would still be the superintendent.
I feel just by the negative stigma, cheating will NOT happen again. Never mind relocating teachers. Get rid of those that were implemented in the scandal and let’s start fresh. You all forget that we have some GREAT teachers in Atlanta Public Schools. I am a product of APS. Cheating hasn’t always been going on. Teachers haven’t always been pressured.
I am sick and tired of all the negativity. Okay…it happened…Let’s move forward. Don’t get it twisted, this is a NATIONWIDE problem planted in 2002 with implementation of NCLB. Because of Beverly Hall’s arrogance, APS got caught. Cheating is wrong. If a student makes 800 on the CRCT and the next year the student makes an 802 THAT IS A GAIN!!! APS like other districts are pressured to make AYP. How the heck can schools make AYP when special education students, English language learners, and learning disabled students are required to take the exact SAME test as the regular education students. Many can NOT read and the test, and their comprehension skills are not as sharp. I think these APS and students from other urban school districts around the nation are set up for failure from the onset.
The schools like Mary Lin, Morningside, Grady and Inman are JUST as guilty. They are protected from scandal for reasons I am sure you can guess. Schools are redistricted to shift low performing students so schools scores will shift in their favor. Several years ago, there was a redistricting battle in Cobb County with McEachern HS for this exact same issue.
I have worked summer school at Inman and have talked with some Inman students who were discipline problems during the regular school year. As it turns out INMAN is no different than a lot of the other urban schools. The difference is Inman, like Mary Lin and others schools who claim to have these high test scores will send their failing students to other schools and teachers at these other urban schools are expected to perform miracles in teaching these disruptive and/ or learning challenged students. Therefore Inman, Mary Lin and the other “high performing schools” do well on the overall CRCT and the urban schools do not. YOU DO THE MATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If these teachers and principals are so great at these high performing schools, I would like to see them do the same thing in urban and inner city schools where there is little parental involvement, disruptions, and little resources WITHOUT getting rid of students.
@maureen, I too would like to see the report mentioned by @questioning about Morningside. And if the AJC wants to do something worthy for education , something worth reading, do an investigative report on redistricting around the nation That’s where the meat is. There has never been so much redistricting across the nation like there is now with schools under pressure to keep scores up. I will be waiting.
Attentive Parent
April 30th, 2012
10:33 am
Thanks for liberating me from 9:34 last night. Previous page now for anyone curious of what triggered a 12 hour detention.
Someone sent me this morning’s AJC article on the changes Common Core will be bringing to Georgia’s classroom’s next fall.
There are people quoted in that article who we should just nicknamed Pinocchio. They must be just hoping we will all attribute all the changes to Common Core and not recognize the underlying reality. What a deception given what is simultaneously going on.
The Common Core Deception. What will be the long term effects of Georgia’s push to be at the forefront of what are collosally bad ideas once you strip away the PR rhetoric?
Atlanta Mom
April 30th, 2012
10:47 am
Let’s get real,
Those kids you talked to in the summer at Inman middle school? Are you sure they were Inman students? Because that summer school program has kids from all over the district.
As for the explanation of erasures at Mary Lin–have you never gotten “off line” on a multiple choice test? Get to the end of the 60 question test and realize you just bubbled on line 59? I have. And then I had many erasures. That was one thing that was always troubling to me about the erasure analysis. It only takes one child to make that mistake to flag an entire class room.
Maureen Downey
April 30th, 2012
11:41 am
@Attentive, I am puzzled by why your posts were auto-filtered this weekend. I will just keep releasing them, which is supposed to reassure the automated program that you are a validated poster.
Maureen
vince
April 30th, 2012
12:03 pm
One year our school won the state’s Platinum Award for greatest gains.
We didn’t cheat
Why did we make such huge gains? About 80% of our non-English speaking students withdrew from the previous year because their parents got upset with their apartment manager. That alone was enough to make our scores jump.
I think the AJC sometimes assumes cheating took place when in fact the reasons for big gains….or losses…were demographic in nature.
Attentive Parent
April 30th, 2012
12:32 pm
Thanks Maureen. You and I may not agree on issues but I do have good cause for my concerns and a deep knowledge of the underlying literature.
I see you have the story up on Common Core. I am already calling this the summer of Common Core as teachers and parents reach out to people like you and me trying to get solid info as to the what and why of the actual implementation.
Sonny Goldreich
April 30th, 2012
5:09 pm
I’m stunned by your shoddy “expose” on Blue Ribbon School cheating.
Its conclusions regarding Highland Elementary School (where my wife teaches ESOL) in Montgomery County, MD, is libelous. It is based entirely on a statistical review and concludes there is cheating. There is no evidence, no proof, no sign of altered tests (as was the case in Atlanta). The “investigation” does not exist.
This is a school that has been turned upside down over the past decade as administrators, the county and state have obsessed over raising test scores.
Curricula have been scrapped, rebuilt and scrapped and rebuilt again.
Teachers have been purged every year.
Demands on students have been raised and their school year revolves around preparing for statewide tests.
This will improve scores. Once. Then you have to start with a whole new cohort of kindergarten students coming into the school from illiterate homes and the testing clock starts anew.
This is no surprise.
Is it a scandal? Maybe, if you think students should learn more than penciling in little circles. But that seems to be a subject beyond the command of the AJC reporters, Alan Judd, Heather Vogell and John Perry.
Nicole
April 30th, 2012
5:30 pm
What that Common Core article failed to address was the fact that it’s so basic In the primary grades.
Take a look at what my fellow parents up here in Montgomery County, MD have to say about it (we implemented it this year): http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/230899.page
Ron F.
April 30th, 2012
7:49 pm
Nicole: too many in decision making positions forgot that it’s common CORE- as in, basic, fundamental foundation for building upon. Since tests will be geared to it in the near future, it sounds like your leaders “drank the Kool-Aid” and the common core has become the common EVERYTHING. Pitiful, isn’t it?
Brandy
April 30th, 2012
8:51 pm
Oops, the AJC has p*ssed off the Montgomery County crowd. Watch out!…Sadly, I’m not really kidding.
I’d bet dollars to donuts that there is some type of cheating going on in every high-achieving school or district out there. There is probably also some type of cheating going on in the low-performing ones. Here in East Cobb, I (personally) know of 1 teacher who lost her job last year for telling students answers on the CRCT and another who is on leave for allegedly doing the same thing this year (the student in question may not be a reliable source in that case). How about the other teachers on this blog? Have you guys heard of any other examples in above reproach schools or districts?
Anonmom
April 30th, 2012
10:30 pm
No — none of my kids’ schools have enough computers (partially because they kept getting stolen)… but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t the right way to do the testing…. Dr. Atkinson is working on getting IPads into everyone’s hands and they are now programming computers to report locations when taken so in this day and age everyone being able to take the test by computer should be a possibility…..
Cobb Taxpayer
April 30th, 2012
11:27 pm
It was obvious that the academic test “improvements” had little to do with performance or knowledge – cheating was so evident and nothing was being done to curb the cheating – still, APS is just the tip of the Iceburg.
The current Blue Ribbon Schools under Duncan and NCLB is a complete joke -
real teacher
May 1st, 2012
10:05 am
@vince you are dead on. Demographic shifts shift scores. That is the reason for so much redistricting– shift communities, to shift scores, to shift real estate value.
Larry C
May 2nd, 2012
8:56 am
Let’s see. The Dept. of Education said major improvement merited an award and the AJC decided that major improvements provided clear evidence that something was amiss. Where is the disconnect? The AJC has used statistics to strongly imply that the only real explanation for the improvement is cheating, when in fact there are a whole host of other possibilities. In the Maryland example Montgomery county poured in lots of money and new people. That alone completely invalidates the probability calculations that the AJC seems to so fervently worship.